Sep 5, 2020

Nick pulls "made by Maddie" premiere after "Hair love" controversy

A few days before its release, Nickelodeon has pulled the debut of a new preschool series, made by Maddie, after controversy broke out about the visual similarity between the show's characters and those of Oscar Win's short-haired love.

Controversy: A Twitter user tweeted about Nick Jr. on 9/13.After the release of a teaser promoting the premiere of Made by Maddie, I began to criticize it. 1 of the first tweets that attracted great attention, including one from the creator of Hair Love:pic.twitter.com/eV9Ki1E4IH

----------- (@softblackgirls)2020-9-2

Nickelodeon's position: The network acknowledged the controversy in a statement it made about the show's delay, implying that it would investigate (or "gain further insight") how the series' main character's design became something akin to hair love. Here's their full statement:

"Made by Maddie is a show that we acquired a few years ago from the well-known production company Silvergate Media, which previously worked on other series. Since announcing the show's premiere date this week, we have listened closely to the commentary, criticism and concerns that come from both viewers and members of the creative community. In response, and in honor of all the voices in the conversation, we're removing the show from the schedule to gain further insight into the show's creative journey. We are grateful to Silvergate Media for all of their work. And we hold Matthew A. Love of cherry and wonderful and touching hair in the best regard."

What do the people behind Hair Love think about the situation - Matthew A., creator and co-director of Hair LoveCherry has not commented publicly on the issue, but he has retweeted and liked other people's comments suggesting similarities between the two projects.

Hair Love storyboard artist Pearl Law is more vocal, writing on Twitter that she was offered the opportunity to work on the work made by Maddie. Lo also claimed that the major creative figures in Made by Maddie knew the love of hair, saying, "The director of Made By Maddie was fully aware of the existence of the love of hair. He and I were in the same animation workshop led by @MatthewACherry talmbout [sic] making films (including showing designs). This is art theft & neglect for black creators & their art period."

The show is similar to hair love in other ways - not really. If you look at the trailer (below), the characters other than Maddy (and not so much, her parents and pet cats) do not resemble a love of hair. Conceptually, it has little to do with the love of hair made by Maddie. Created by Paula Rosenthal, Executive vp of Creative content at Silvergate, the show was announced in spring 2018 under the title "Fashion Ally." At the time, it was a perfect fashion solution and a "woman named Ally" with a big idea and passion for fashion that "turns all problems" into a positive

What companies were behind made by Maddie: The irony of ironies made by maddie was that Silvergate Media, a division of Sony, was the first company to launch Hair Love. Other shows in Silvergate by the same companies that produced and distributed include Hilda, Octonouts and Peter Rabbit. The animation was produced by Rainmaker Entertainment, a subsidiary of Wow, based in Vancouver, Canada. Unlimited media. Nick Jr. commissioned the series in 2018.

Silvergate Media's Position: Silvergate CEO Waheed Alli issued the following statement:

"Silvergate Media has been working on the series for the past five years and has taken steps to ensure that a diverse production team and the right voice cast lend expertise and talent throughout production. As creators, we are working with Matthew A.We have the utmost respect and admiration for Cherry and Hair Love, and our hope is that when people see our show, they will know that it is that. "

Bottom Line: It's an indisputable truth that studios are always creatively borrowing from each other, sometimes character design, but other times with hundreds of animated series and features produced around the world every year, this kind of creative penetration is inevitable.

In this case, Maddie (and perhaps another character or 2 people) is visually similar to the character in Hair Love. While the similarities are almost certainly intentional, both Hair Love and Maddie's designs are so common that they fit comfortably into previously established children's animation types that they may look similar to each other, both are similar to other existing projects in the children's space:

The biggest fakes of Silvergate and Nickelodeon are more than one. Usually, the network or studio decides to make a new project into a mix of existing shows A, B, etc. And they scramble design features from different shows to create "something new."

Here, Silvergate and Nick were already lazy, even with low standards of preschool animation, and got caught. Maddie's headband and cat did not have to be the same color as the hair love character; the father may not have been a derivative of the hair love design.

But even though the Twitter mob wants to make this happen, Made by Maddie doesn't even rise to the level of plagiarism. From what we have seen so far, it is a completely different idea with the similarity of hair love and unfortunate design. It will be interesting to see how Nick navigates this situation.